


quinoa and coming out

by emotionalpanda



Category: Dead To Me (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Realizations, expanding my own tweet bc i can
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:35:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25948954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emotionalpanda/pseuds/emotionalpanda
Summary: a fic version of the tweet "jen sitting down at her laptop, glasses on, typing "how to know if you're gay" into google and then slamming the laptop shut when judy walks by"
Relationships: Judy Hale/Jen Harding
Comments: 15
Kudos: 116





	quinoa and coming out

Jen always thought she was straight.

Then, Judy showed up one day, with her bright colored shirts and her never-ending kindness, and Jen knew she was _fucked_.

It was kind of becoming a problem. Jen didn’t think she’d be questioning her sexuality in her forties, but then it just sort of happened.

She had no idea how to talk about it.

* * *

“Do you know what we should do with this quinoa?” Judy asked, looking down at the container of it, “I think it could be good in a salad, maybe? We have kale.”

“Yeah, yeah, that works,” Jen answered, but her mind was elsewhere. She was too caught up thinking about the fact that Judy liked women. _Judy liked women_.

“Can you look up recipes when you get a chance? I want the boys to like it, but I don’t think they’re really big on kale? So maybe if we found a good dressing…”

Jen nodded, “Will do.”

_Judy liked women._ Judy liked women and she made it look so fucking natural. There was no dramatic coming out, no late night heart-to-heart, nothing. She made it seem so easy-breezy, like one day you could just date a woman and no one would even blink.

Jen wished it was that simple.

If Judy liked women, Judy could like Jen. How would Jen even be able to tell? She wasn’t well versed in all the lesbian bullshit. It was like a whole new language with phrases she’d never heard. _What the fuck is a rising sign? Is that just the time you wake up? That’s stupid._

Sure, Judy lived in Jen’s house with her. They were roommates. They parented Jen’s kids together; Judy was basically their other mom at this point. Sure, they shared a bed. But, the bed sharing was only because Jen was worried about wildfires: she couldn’t leave Judy in the guest house, not when it was safer for them all to be in one building. That’s all.

So what if Jen really enjoyed the bed sharing? Judy’s touch was comforting. Jen wasn’t used to being cuddled so effectively. Ted’s arms always felt constricting when he tried to cuddle her, they were like one of those snakes on Animal Planet. He’d reach an arm across Jen’s waist and it felt heavy on her body. She could never relax.

When Judy wrapped her arm around her, both of them nestled into Jen’s crisp sheets, it was the most peaceful thing. Jen slept like a fucking baby, no care in the world. She looked forward to it every night.

Jen knew it meant something.

And that’s how she ended up sitting down at the table, reading glasses on, laptop open to google dot com, typing a sentence that made her feel so ridiculous: “How to know if you’re gay?”

Jen clicked the search button and leaned in closer to the screen. She stumbled across a few articles and quizzes: talk of kissing girls and something called the Kinsey scale, but she didn’t have enough time to go through them because Judy was suddenly touching her arm.

Jen slammed the laptop shut in some sort of freaked-out reflex. She turned to Judy.

“God, you snuck up on me like a fucking Prius!”

Judy shrugged, “Sorry,” She looked down at Jen’s closed laptop, “What were you googling? Dark web?”

“No,” Jen struggled to come up with a good lie, but then it clicked: “I was, uh, searching for those quinoa recipes.”

Judy beamed, “Great! Let me see!”

Jen froze, caught in the lie. It had been a shitty lie, because of course Judy would want to see the laptop screen. She was always looking for ways to jazz up quinoa. _Stupid move, Jen._

“Uh…” Jen stalled. Her face gave it away.

“So you weren’t looking up quinoa flavor hacks? I thought the buzzfeed listicle was pretty thorough…”

Jen avoided eye contact, keeping her eyes on the table.

Judy started to tease, “No articles on summer squash? No how-to on zoodles?”

Jen frowned.

“I saw your screen, Jen.” Judy admitted, resting a hand on Jen’s shoulder.

“What? No, you didn’t.”

“Oh, yes I did. But, it’s okay. You have nothing to be ashamed of!” Judy insisted, “Really, I mean, I think gay is beautiful.” She smiled at Jen with that playful twinkle in her eye.

Jen sat there for a while, in awkward silence, before clearing her throat and speaking up again: “Okay, one thing that I don’t get. About this whole gay thing,” Jen gestured around with her hands. She paused to think.

Judy tilted her head in curiosity, “What don’t you get?”

Jen sighed dramatically, “Is it always this fucking obvious? I mean, we’ve got the house. The kids. We’ve been thinking of adopting a rescue puppy, for god’s sake, Judes. How did I not see it? It was all right fucking there!”

Judy smirked, “So that’s a yes to the rescue puppy?”

Jen glared at Judy for a moment, before letting her face turn to a softer expression.

“Has it always been like this? Us?”

Judy considered it, before replying: “I think there was always _something_. I don’t know, I can’t explain it.”

“Something?” Jen asked.

Judy nodded. “Definitely something.” She stood behind Jen and rubbed her shoulders, “So for the salad dressing, I just found those lemons we had on the counter, and I was thinking that the lemon could really, like, bring out the essence of the kale…”

And just like that, they were back to normal, and it was as if nothing had changed. But, something had changed.

They were _something_ now.

**Author's Note:**

> idk, they're gay, your honor


End file.
